"Linguistic determinism" is the idea that the words you use to communicate have a profound effect on how you think. An example is the Newspeak language of George Orwell's novel 1984. Another example might be your mother threatening to wash your mouth out with soap. But is there any truth to it? Further research shows that what we think and how we feel is fairly innate, no matter what language we speak or culture we originate from. It appears that the inability to express ourselves has more to do with the limits of our language than with the malleability of our thoughts. We have more control over the language than the language has control over us. "Language relativism" is a whole other subject, and Tom Scott tries to explain the difference to us. It's a deep and complicated subject, but we don't have to understand all the intricacies of it to understand what researchers are finding out.
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The first generation is very aware of where they came from, and what they must do to succeed.
The second generation still hears the daily stories from their parents, but are now living in relative luxury and can relax a bit.
The third generation knows no other life, and have no idea of the suffering their ancestors went through to give them what they now take for granted. They hear the stories from their grandparents with skepticism.
TLDR: "Kids these days, they just don't know what they got. Now get off my lawn."
In saying that, the article doesn't seem to talk much about acculturative stress. These children are not simply 'becoming American'. They are dealing with the psychological stress of incorporating two identities into one child, the identity expected at home, and the identity expected at school (or the more "Americanized" identity).
For 2nd and 3rd generation children, they are now legally Americans (as they were born in the States) but are still struggling with being bi-cultural. Quite literally, bi-cultural children must learn twice as much as their established counter parts. Often that includes two languages and two sets of expected social time tables (education, marriage, children, ect). Of course, two sets is the simplest scenario. Then, these children must learn (all on their own) how to balance the two.
While building awareness about these children's struggles is important (as many were either transported as infants/toddlers or born here) we must be sensitive to their experiences as uniquely defined by their bi-cultural status.
-Usually by/after 3g, they've pissed it away because they're not visionaries anymore, they're Useless Aristocrats who know how to do Nothing but spend money.
Most immigrants who come here legally enjoy life here and make a go of it. Their children end up spoiled, period. Their grandchildren, even more so. What is so surprising about that?
As to WHY they are spoiled, well, put it down to how upwardly mobile immigrants can be here and stop bashing America.
You won't find many countries in the world where people can come, work hard and so quikly carve out a decent life for their family.
Jealous? Get over it. That's life.
But don't try to make us feel ashamed of the freedom we have to move up.
Habituation. We habituate and slacken on our morals and habits when the environment is so.